Former Editor of Xinjiang Newspaper in China Is Ousted From Communist Party

BEIJING — The Communist Party has expelled the recent editor in chief of the official newspaper of the volatile western region of Xinjiang for openly discussing party policy and for corruption, according to an online announcement on Monday by the regional party anticorruption agency. The former editor is expected to face criminal prosecution on related charges.

The announcement about the former editor, Zhao Xinyu, was a rare instance in which the party said it had purged someone for questioning or openly discussing policy, and the move could have wide-ranging effects on the behavior and actions of China’s 90 million party members.

Mr. Zhao oversaw Xinjiang Daily, the most important party news and opinion publication in the region, from 2011 until this May, when he was removed at the start of a party investigation.

Xinjiang is a vast region on China’s western borderlands where security forces are trying to suppress violence and protests by angry and frustrated members of the Uighur ethnicity. The Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking, mostly Sunni Muslim group whose members often complain about discriminatory policies set by the Han, the dominant ethnic group in China.

Hundreds of people have died there in violence in recent years, and the party is trying to impose strict anti-Islamic practices in the region because it blames Muslim extremists. President Xi Jinping has taken a strong personal interest in governance there.

Mr. Zhao is an ethnic Han from Shanxi Province who had been assigned to Xinjiang to manage Xinjiang Daily and direct its party committee.

Senior party officials appear to be using Mr. Zhao’s case to set an example across party ranks, be it in Beijing or the provinces. Forcing party discipline on members is something that Mr. Xi, the party chief, has been trying to do since he took power from Hu Jintao in 2012.

The announcement by the regional discipline and inspection commission, which examines corruption and other violations of party rules, highlighted the fact that Mr. Zhao was being investigated for “discussing party policy in an open manner.” This phrase — “wangyi zhongyang” in Chinese — was added to a revised set of party regulations issued on Oct. 22. The phrase appears under Article 46, which goes into some detail on what party members can discuss in meetings.

An older version of the article says party members cannot speak out against party policy. The new version says they cannot openly talk about policy. On WeChat, a popular messaging app, party members noted that Mr. Zhao’s case was the first being brought under the revised article and that it would have a chilling effect on policy discussions.

The official announcement about the ouster said Mr. Zhao’s main violation was “discussing the party central’s policies and decisions, and openly publishing comments against party central and the Xinjiang party committee’s important orders and demands.” It did not give further details on the violations.

On Monday morning, the party’s Central Discipline and Inspection Commission in Beijing, which oversees the work of the regional commissions, published online a transcript of a question-and-answer session with Ma Senshu, a senior commission official whose office drafted the new party regulations. Mr. Ma brought up Article 46 in his final comments. He said the new language was added to ensure that the party would have solidarity in speech and action.

He added that open discussion of party policy by officials “not only confuses people’s thinking, but also has severe consequences.”

“It destroys the party’s unity and solidarity, and prevents party policy from being thoroughly implemented,” he said.

James Leibold, a scholar of Chinese ethnic policies and Xinjiang at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, said in a telephone interview that the expulsion of Mr. Zhao could also be related to party infighting.

Zhou Yongkang, a top central party official who was purged and given a life sentence in prison in June for corruption, had close ties to leaders in Xinjiang. He was particularly close to Wang Lequan, who was the party chief in Xinjiang from 1994 to 2010 and was in the Politburo. Mr. Wang’s replacement, Zhang Chunxian, is also in the Politburo and was selected as successor by Mr. Hu, then the party leader.

Mr. Xi and his ally, Wang Qishan, leader of the Central Discipline and Inspection Commission, brought down Mr. Zhou after many months of detaining and investigating his associates.

Mr. Leibold said it was unclear whether Mr. Zhao was tied to the Zhou and Wang faction in Xinjiang, but that “Zhou Yongkang’s presence there looms very large.”

“Xi is trying to deal with the implications of that for his authority and rule in Xinjiang,” he said.

“Or was he a corrupt official,” Mr. Leibold said, “and they brought in this new law and are using him as an example to push this new regulation? The possibilities are numerous.”

Mia Li and Vanessa Piao contributed research.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Chinese Editor, Purged for Discussing Policy, Is Expected to Face Graft Charges . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe